Soldier's capture touches nerve in a military society

Probe an Israeli man for clues to his identity and he's as likely to tell you his army unit as his job.

So when 19-year-old Corporal Gilad Shalit was carried off by Palestinian militiamen into the maze of Gaza refugee camps his fate touched a nerve in a society where the military holds an almost mystical place.

Almost all men and a majority of women have served as conscripts, and continue to do reserve duty for many years afterwards.

The popular romantic view is of a people's army that has fought repeatedly for the very survival of the nation and still stands as a bulwark against the Jewish state's destruction. However, the rest of the world may judge the relative strengths of Israel and its enemies.

"This is an army based on universal conscription that is really seen as the main pillar of Israeli security in a part of the world where we continue to see existential threats," said Yossi Alpher, a former officer in Military Intelligence who later worked for Mossad, the Israeli security service.

But it is also a force in shaping Israeli identity.

"The army absorbs immigrants, it teaches some people to read and write, it prepares for citizenship, it even converts to Judaism," he said. "Even if we were to find ourselves at peace with our neighbours there would be very strong pressure to continue conscription because there's a very strong sense this is an important part of Israeli society."

Not every Israeli is embraced by the army. Arab citizens are still viewed with suspicion and not subject to conscription. More and more Israeli men are finding ways to avoid serving in protest at the occupation, including the Israeli prime minister's sons. But they remain a minority.

Opinion polls regularly show that the military remains by far the most trusted institution in a country where voters are accustomed to political corruption that sometimes reaches the highest offices.

But that also places an unusual burden on an army routinely described by its leaders as "the most moral in the world".

When it fails to live up to that billing the institutional instinct is to cover up, as it has done over soldiers killing Palestinian civilians and foreigners in recent years with demonstrably false accounts of the circumstances of their deaths.

The army cleared itself of responsibility for the killing of a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach three weeks ago during an artillery barrage after many Israelis were shaken by television pictures of a traumatised child wailing over the body of her father.

If the public embarrassment becomes too great - as in the assault on the Palestinian town of Rafah two years ago when an Israeli cabinet minister said the army's actions reminded him of how the Germans treated his grandmother - then the military would rather abandon an operation than risk its reputation.

But the pressure over Cpl Shalit's welfare goes beyond public relations.

"It's not just an issue about the relationship between the army and the public but also within the army - the ethos of never abandoning a fellow soldier," said Mr Alpher.

Etched into the army's consciousness is the case of a Druze soldier who was wounded in Bethlehem four years ago and who died because the military leadership hesitated to risk more lives to rescue him.

"The army rank and file was extremely bitter that not enough was done. There was a strong sense this must never happen again," said Mr Alpher. "I can certainly see the army leadership saying to the political leadership that we have to get [Cpl Shalit] back no matter what the cost."